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Posts Tagged ‘KDP’

The dog days of August are officially upon us, so what better way to celebrate than with ten tales of varying darkness?

Wuh?

My thoughts exactly. I realize you have questions, friend. I do too. Here, hopefully, are some answers:

Like Life Itself: Ten Short Stories will be full-on free for Kindle users between the dates of August 5th and August 7th, 2015. The first tale, as always, is available for preview here. Simply click on the aptly-named Look Inside thingie and treat yourself to heapin’ helpin’s of creepy gross stuff.

Things lighten up from there. Sort of. If you don’t mind a workplace massacre, a returning wounded warrior denied by his lover, and a man carefully and efficiently planning his suicide. Good times!

But there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. The last story is tangentially baseball-related.

To reiterate: Like Life Itself will be free between August 5th and 7th. The sale is set to begin at 8am PDT (11am EDT). Set your cellphone alarms accordingly. Personally, I’m partial to the rooster one.

So KDP went ahead and decided to change their whole payin’ the authors thing last month. On the plus side, it gives verbose writers (like me) a chance to get paid per page . On the other plus side, it makes the pizza delivery driver happy to see my address on his delivery app. Explanations follow.

I don’t ordinarily get this deep into the weeds, but what with the changes and whatnot, here are the hard numbers regarding last month’s attempts at selling my fiction of questionable merit:

A World Gone Gray: 2 sold, 4 borrowed via KOLL, 1765 pages read

The Transience of Youth: 74 free downloads

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t record the actual KOLL borrow numbers per unit anymore, so I had to stalk my Reports and Bookshelf pages all month and assume a borrow occurred when AWGG (my best- [or, more accurately] only-) seller got a modest bump in the rankings. Last month’s Transience giveaway may or may not have affected AWGG‘s performance; one sale and two borrows took place during the three-day freebie thing. So the jury’s still out.

Bottom line, Broome. Howmuch did you rake in last month?

Enough to order a one-topping pizza and give a struggling kid a decent tip. On a side note, that’s my best month money-wise in about a year and a half.

Pfft, you may say. And I tend to agree with you. However, I made inroads in countries I have a lingering fondness for. So there’s that. Four downloads in Germany and one in Italy. Dankes and ciaos (owing to my limited Italian skills) are in order. So thank you, mystery downloaders.

I’m sure you’re wondering most of all about that pizza delivery dude. Rest assured, he was tipped. Well. I may live in squalor, but I like to pay it forward when I can. Not the squalor, the positive stuff.

Okay, by “stuff” I mean one book for an extremely limited time. My ticket on the Crazy Train (last stop, Indianapolis) hasn’t officially been punched yet. It’s still a hanging chad. Coincidentally, if you got that last reference, you might be interested in getting this book. Have I mentioned it’s soon to be free? Detailed details follow:

Coming this mid-week, mid-week, mid-week! A creature never before seen on God’s green Earth! A mutant of epic proportions! Consider, if you can, a Kindle ebook consisting of 50% romantic comedy, 50% contemplation of death, and 50% bathroom humor written 110% by a writer who sucks egregiously at math! The horror…And the romantic comedy…And the apologies for the Yogi Berra rip-off…

So here’s the deal. Between the dates of the completely arbitrary dates of July 21-July 23, 2015,The Transience of Youth will be wholly free. It’s yours for the price of a nothing. A seven- or eight-chapter preview is available for your reading pleasure or disgust at all times, but here are a few nuggets from later on in the tale:

Though he was used to rejection in both his personal and quasi-professional lives—from women, from publishers, from literary agents—this one hurt. He and Janice had much in common, or so he’d thought. They were both intelligent and ambitious, and they were more than compatible in the bedroom. They enjoyed the same movies, the same quiet restaurants, and the same love for baseball, crossword puzzles, and crude animated sitcoms. Then what the hell happened? Steve wondered.

****

“I’m a victim of youthism.”

****

“Oh, you’re worried about your personal safety?” Betsy asked, her tone dripping with spurious sympathy. “Mr. Dugan on Mayflower Street was probably concerned about his safety when he served this great nation in World War II. Even more concerned, I imagine, when a German Panzer shell exploded next to him, killing half his squad and rendering his legs forever useless.” She continued, color rising in her face. “And sweet old Ms. Gibson on Downing Lane? I’m sure she didn’t feel quite at home when she and her sister were beaten nearly to death in front of an Alabama church because their skin color didn’t match that of the locals.” Betsy picked a pair of scissors off her desk and pointed their business end at Steve. “If you think for the briefest second you have earned the right to live among people as fine and worthy as them, you are utterly, hopelessly, wrong.”

“Ms. Rogan, I’m just as entitled to—”

“Entitled? Entitled?”

****

“Oh, wah. Cry me a river. The lights go out for a couple of days and you’re ready to throw yourself in front of a freight train? You need to toughen up, son. Things aren’t so bad.”

“There’s no magic wand, kid. You can change your surroundings all you want, but you can’t change what’s in here.” George tapped his temple. “You’re stuck with it.”

****

Steve took a step toward Sarah and grazed her hand with one trembling finger. To his surprise, she inched forward and curled her pinkie around his. She stood close enough for Steve to feel the heat radiating off her body. He licked his lips, swallowed loudly and asked, “Do you have enough time to talk for a while?”